


Giselle

by Marguerite



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Episode Tag, Episode: s03e03 Ways and Means, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-03-16
Updated: 2009-03-16
Packaged: 2019-05-30 17:06:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15101219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marguerite/pseuds/Marguerite
Summary: Ways and Means(9K). "He didn't know how to lift her up, how to make her a creature of the air."





	Giselle

**Author's Note:**

> A copy of this work was once archived at National Library, a part of the [ West Wing Fanfiction Central](https://fanlore.org/wiki/West_Wing_Fanfiction_Central), a West Wing fanfiction archive. More information about the Open Doors approved archive move can be found in the [announcement post](http://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/8325).

Classification: Post-ep for "Ways and Means"  
Summary: He didn't know how to lift her up, how to make her a creature of the air.

***

The story, ironically, hadn't spread to the one person who would have found it funniest. While the others were mocking Josh for having wanted to be a ballerina, the woman who really had been one wasn't playing the Swan Queen or Juliet, but rather La Cenerentola, Cinderella, stuck among boxes of the metaphorical cinders of a Presidency going up in flames.

Josh remembered finding out about her hidden talent. The conversation had begun in the mess when CJ mentioned that the President was attending a performance of the San Francisco Ballet at the Kennedy Center.

"Did you ever dance, CJ?" Josh had asked, knowing CJ's predilection for tripping the light fantastic.

"Not like that. I never had a chance to study ballet."

"I did," Donna had piped up, gesturing grandly with her Styrofoam cup. "I started when I was five, and I got to be pretty good. I went to Interlochen on full scholarship when I was fourteen, and again when I was fifteen."

"So why aren't you doing it for a living instead of letting Josh abuse you?" CJ had inquired while Josh huffed into his chicken salad sandwich.

"By the time I turned sixteen, I was five-foot-ten." She and CJ had exchanged knowing, sympathetic glances. "It's one thing to be taller than the guys when you're in flats, but on pointe - it was just too much."

Of course Josh hadn't exposed his own preschool peccadillo, not then, because they hadn't been subpoenaed and accused and hunted yet and he still had some dignity to guard. But today it had slipped, and Sam had managed to spread it like a Wyoming wildfire throughout the White House.

On an earlier, drunken night he had seen one of Donna's scrapbooks, filled with yellowing photographs of teenaged Donna in fluffy tutus, with various crowns on her long, golden hair. Had seen her in blues and greens and deepest blacks, but there was one gauzy white gown that had emphasized what was, even then, the ethereal sadness in her elegant limbs.

"What's this?" he'd asked, pointing to the picture of her, all alone against a backdrop of dead papier-mâché trees and Styrofoam tombstones.

"Giselle," she'd replied, miraculously tucking those long legs under her as she passed Josh a cup of much-needed coffee, and since he hated it when people knew something he didn't, he never asked about the story.

"So, Sam," he asked his friend now that it was dark and Donna had vanished, returned, and vanished once again in a cloud of gloom, "CJ called me Giselle. In front of Leo, she called me Giselle."

"You really didn't think I could sit on that good of a story, did you?"

"Nah." Josh looked out the window even though there was nothing to see but the endless blackness of a DC night. "But who's Giselle?"

"A Wili."

"A Whatee?"

"Josh." Sam leaned back in his desk chair. His face was an unhealthy white, his eyes bleary from the reading and writing and 'rithmetic of impending disaster. "Giselle was a poor girl who attracted a prince. He toyed with her affections and when she found out she'd been deceived, she died. She became a Wili."

"And that's where you lost me."

"Wilis were the ghosts of young girls. Specifically, young girls who loved to dance, and even more specifically were jilted before their wedding day."

"Well, that's charming."

"Not really. So the guy felt lousy and went to her grave, where the Queen of the Wilis pronounced that he must die as did all men who deserted innocent girls - by forcing him to dance all night until he died of exhaustion."

"This just gets worse and worse." Josh stopped twirling his pen and slumped, morosely, with his head in his hands.

"Not really," Sam said again, in a slightly brighter tone. "Giselle's spirit stood by him through the night and he survived."

"But she's still dead."

"Yeah, there's that."

"Great. And people take little girls to see that story?" Josh lifted his head. "Donna danced that once. I saw pictures."

"She still dances, down at the gym. When things get stressful."

"She must live there these days."

"Considering what she looked like when she got back from dinner, I'm willing to bet she's there right now." Sam got up, stretched, and inclined his head toward the door. "I'm going to the mess for coffee. Want some?"

"I'm good. Thanks. But I'll take a little walk." Josh got up and followed Sam to the stairs, then headed off in the direction of the gym.

There was a window, glowing with mysterious yellow light, and Josh peered inside. Donna was there, in a faded green leotard and pale pink tights, her hair done in a haphazard bun with tendrils falling around her face like feathers. She was using a dumbbell rack as a barre. Effortlessly she extended one leg to the barre and slid down and back, bending over until her forehead touched her knee, then she stood up and began to dance.

There was music in her head, or in her heart, for her steps were measured and rhythmic as she rose in tattered satin toe shoes. Rising, falling, her long, perfect arms embracing the air then spreading like birds' wings. So different from workaday, awkward Donna .

As a boy he'd laughed when he and Joanie went to the zoo and watched ducks and swans waddling on dry land. "They're not land animals," their grandfather had said as he rolled stale bread into little balls to throw to the birds. "They don't make sense on land. You have to see them in the water."

And so it was with Donna, whose body seemed utterly graceless when she walked but was so, so richly beautiful as the dance continued. She was humming to herself as she glided across the floor. Deceptively delicate, spun glass with an unbreakable core. The usual clatter of toe shoes was absent as she shifted her weight expertly, and her slippers whispered against the wood.

Josh pushed the door ajar, glad that Donna did not hear the creak of the old hinges or the slight gasp he made when she took a few running steps and leapt into the air, seeming to hang there like an ornament for an impossible second.

She didn't hear him, but she saw him in the mirror, and she let out a gasp of her own. Never turning around, she just said his name, softly. "Joshua." 

He stood behind her, close enough to feel the warmth from her body, close enough to catch a note of her faded perfume through the salty sweat. Whatever she'd done tonight hadn't gone well - he could tell this from the defeated slump of her shoulders when she stood still and became a reluctant, breathless land animal once again. She didn't speak to him, just looked into his eyes in the mirror, backwards Josh and Donna, them but not really them, the glass reflecting only because there was something dark behind it.

He took a few steps forward and put his palm at her waist. When she went onto her toes she was taller than he, and when she leaned against him, her arms outstretched, supplicating, he found he could almost close his hands around her narrow waist.

For one instant he pressed his cheek into her neck, soft and moist against his day-old stubble, and if he'd known how, he'd have lifted her the way he'd seen dancers do, but he was even more helpless in her element than she was in his. He didn't know how to lift her up, how to make her a creature of the air. Instead he gave her a brief kiss on the cheek as she lowered her arms and came off her toes with a dull thud.

"Sleep in tomorrow, Donnatella" he whispered into her hair. She nodded in silence as he backed away toward the door, and through the little window he saw her, a wraith, watching in the mirror as a highborn man took his leave.

***  
END  
***  
Hugs, wine, and chocolate to Ryo and Morgan for advice and reassurance above and beyond.

Feedback is welcome.


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